


Something Lost

by TheConfusedTurtle



Series: A Simple Task AU [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, a piece from a story I may or may not be editing and cleaning up, and maybe I’ll post it eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheConfusedTurtle/pseuds/TheConfusedTurtle
Summary: Whi-Two, the Princess of a small kingdom by the name of Niveus, looses her ring which symbolizes her power. Afraid of facing the consequences for it, she ventures outside the palace to look for it in the middle of the night.(A sort of prologue for A Simple Task)





	Something Lost

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece from something I wrote about a year ago and finally convinced myself to edit. It’s an AU, and by that I mean I sat down and built a whole new world to stick these two in because I like worldbuilding just a little too much—and fantasy maybe a little bit more. While it’s not the kind of thing you usually see for this pairing (at least I don’t think so) it is the kind of thing I write. Usually.
> 
> Well, I suppose without further ado…

"'Who would bother with a Princess?' she says. 'Who would care what I do?' she says. Sometimes—no, _all_ the time—you can be really dense."

"Stop whining. No one likes a whiner." She frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "And it's not cute."

"I'm not trying to be cute, nor am I whining. I'm reminding you that you are, in fact, quite stupid," he said in a mindless retort, kicking rocks in his path and following her quick steps at his own pace. "Really, I mean no disrespect, Your Highness, but it's true. You do accept that, don't you?"

Whi-Two shot a glare in his direction, only earning the most annoying and careless shrug. "Quit talking already. I get your point—you'd rather be asleep right now. But if I don't find it now, it will be gone by morning and I'll be in deep trouble."

"So you said to yourself, the best way to find a tiny ring is by _moonlight_?" He scoffed and gestured vaguely to the sliver of a moon in the blackened sky, half hidden by the thick canopy of trees. "Oh sure, brilliant. Behold, Niveus's wise, future Queen. She's fit to rule her people."

She rolled her eyes and pushed her way through tall grass and thick foliage. She had lost it somewhere around here, she knew she had. If she had lost her ring, her symbol of power, it would be like...

She didn't want to think about it, nor the punishment she would face. The council of elders would never let it slide. They would demand to know why they had left the ring with a child in the first place. She had to find it that night, no matter how impossible it may have been.

But the constant grumbling of the only person she could trust to accompany her and keep his mouth sealed was really not helping.

Supposedly crawling with monsters and dangerous other things, she was not allowed to enter Niveus's vast forest without someone there at her side. Though she doubted a guard-in-training was the best choice, and one barely older than her (being thirteen).

Maybe she was dumb after all.

"Listen, Hugh," she finally said in an exasperated tone as she turned to face him. "Make yourself useful; either by looking for my ring, or standing watch, or just shutting your mouth. None of those things are hard."

"You act like its my fault you lost it."

Whi-Two grit her teeth to keep herself from making a retort: it was useless in the end. "It isn't your fault, but that doesn't mean you can't be of help."

Maybe she should have gone alone. The forest was her land, and the creatures were hers to command. What could be so dangerous? 

Something shiny caught her eye. Off in the distance, just a few yards away, she caught sight of what she assumed was her ring in the moonlight. Glancing once at Hugh, she ventured towards it alone. It wasn't far. 

But it was in the hands of another, who stood admiring it in his fingers. She stopped at the sight of the knife at his waist and slipped behind the cover of a nearby tree, though he seemed much too interested in her ring to notice her. 

Of course someone had found it before her. She might as well kiss it goodbye: it was surely worth a fortune.

She thought she heard him muttering to himself. Peering around the tree, she found he was looking around as though searching for the person who had lost it. Part of her wished to step out and ask for it back, but a fear of strangers with knives had been drilled into her head. People, the council claimed, were not always what they seemed.

A call to attention pulled the boy's eyes from the ring, just as another man emerged from the forest. 

"I told you to stay close," he hissed, gripping the boy's arm. "The castle guards found _your_ foolish trail last night. Stop being so careless—it's unlike you."

"I'm not careless," the younger fought back, wrenching his arm out of the man's grasp. "And I'm not a fool." He held the ring up to the man. "This was left here earlier today, and it has the royal crest on it. She's already been this way."

The man took the ring and examined it in what little light there was. He tossed it carelessly back to the boy as he spun on his heels. "Mark this spot then and return to your group. And next time, follow the orders given to you, Lack-Two. I won't tell you again."

Catching the ring with ease, Lack-Two stood there for sometime in silence, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed. His fingers closed into a tight fist around the ring, and with a frustrated huff he turned to face the very place where she stood. Whi-Two had to hold her breath for fear of giving herself away.

These were clearly scouts of some sort, but as for what she had no clue. She could only hope right now that Hugh didn't go charging through the forest looking for her, calling out her name. That was the last thing she needed.

She jumped as Lack-Two drove his knife deep into the tree she had been cowering behind, right where her head had been just seconds ago. Her heart racing, her fingers trembling as she clutched them against her chest, she met his dark eyes to find nothing there at all, as though he were a blank slate.

It was, perhaps, more frightening than the knife he almost forced through her skull.

His hand released the hilt and he slipped around the tree—surprisingly moving _away_ from her rather than towards her. 

"You dropped something," he said to her before following the path the other man had made in the tall grass, not bothering at all to cover up his tracks. 

When Whi-Two was certain he was gone, she gulped and slowly approached the knife he had left. Tentatively, as though it might leap from the tree and bite her, she reached for the hilt of the blade to find her ring around the end of it. She pulled the blade from the tree and separated it from her ring.

Though bewildered, her fear dissolved as her lips curled into a smile. She returned the ring to its rightful place on her finger and drove the knife back into the same mark it left on the rough bark of the old tree. Maybe he would come back for it—it was only fair to leave it.

Her luck payed off, as it was then that Hugh pushed his way through the bushes and tall grass. He blinked at her content expression, his hand resting against the hilt of his sword. "I take it you found it?"

She nodded, finding no will to speak. Though she knew she should have told him about what she saw (for surely, it posed a threat to her kingdom), she was too preoccupied with other thoughts. She would mention it another day. What was the harm in her delay?

"Great. Time to go back now. And no more midnight ring-hunts in the forest. I don't get payed enough for this—heck, I don't get payed at all." As he turned, however, he frowned, squinting at the forest and releasing a deep sigh. "Which way did we go again?"

With the roll of her eyes, Whi-Two pushed past him and lead the way out of the forest, glad that there were no more useless comments from him and no more run-ins with dangerous or supposedly dangerous things.

Though, when she finally snapped out of her daze, she couldn’t help but wonder why her ring had been returned to her, and why she had been left untouched and unharmed.

No answer presented itself to her and she soon all but forgot about what transpired that night. 


End file.
